House-made hot sauce a hot item in restaurants

More restaurant chefs making their own blends

Updated 5:22 pm, Friday, September 20, 2013

Scott Youkilis makes hot sauce in the kitchen of one of his San Francisco restaurants, Hog & Rocks.

Scott Youkilis makes hot sauce in the kitchen of one of his San Francisco restaurants, Hog & Rocks.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

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Waterbar's Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce.

Waterbar's Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce.

Photo: Craig Lee, Special To The Chronicle

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Wo Hing General Store's Fermented Chile Sauce

Wo Hing General Store's Fermented Chile Sauce

Photo: Craig Lee, Special To The Chronicle

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Mateo Granados' Habanero Hot Sauce.

Mateo Granados' Habanero Hot Sauce.

Photo: Craig Lee, Special To The Chronicle

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Hot sauce can consist of many ingredients, but chief among them are garlic, onions and chiles: jalapeno, Fresno, Thai and habanero.

Hot sauce can consist of many ingredients, but chief among them are garlic, onions and chiles: jalapeno, Fresno, Thai and habanero.

Photo: Craig Lee, Special To The Chronicle

House-made hot sauce a hot item in restaurants

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Shortly after Scott Youkilis opened Maverick in San Francisco in 2005, he ordered a pound of Fresno chiles but received a case instead. Amid all the chaos of the first week of service, the chiles sat. And sat.

When he couldn't ignore them anymore, he decided to make hot sauce. His staff tasted it.

"Whoa," they said. "We've got something here."

Youkilis has never stopped making what has become his signature hot sauce for Maverick and for his second restaurant, Hog & Rocks. He's not alone. A growing number of chefs have ditched the traditional bottles of Tabasco, Sriracha and Crystal in favor of their own hot sauce blends designed to complement their menus and emphasize the character of the chiles, not just the heat.

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"We use incredible organic chiles and that flavor comes through," Youkilis says. "The heat is there, but you can taste the roasted peppers. So much of the business is not about that. It's about how hot can I get it and how many people can I hurt."

Youk's Hot Sauce has been so well received that he began bottling and selling it in 2006. Last year, his production topped 300 gallons, with nearly 3,000 bottles.

In Healdsburg, Mateo Granados, chef and owner of Mateo's Cocina Latina, launched his El Yuca line of hot sauces to showcase the various flavor profiles of his homegrown habanero chiles at different stages of the season. The last harvest yielded enough to produce roughly 25,000 bottles of the four varieties of sauce.

Bay Area residents can buy these sauces online and at various retail outlets, as well as at the restaurants. You'll also find house-made hot sauces at Farmer Brown, Luella, Magnolia Pub and Brewery, Monk's Kettle, Front Porch, Waterbar and Wo Hing General Store, all in San Francisco.

Hot sauce seems like a natural progression for chefs accustomed to making all of their food in-house.

"When I got here, people were putting Crystal on the table, but it really doesn't go with what we like to do here," says Ronnie New, chef at Magnolia Pub and Brewery. "We like to do everything from scratch. We make our own sausages. We make our own mustard."

Aged in oak

Two months ago, New started making a hot sauce modeled after his favorite commercial blend: Sriracha. He plans to start a barreling program at Magnolia Pub and Brewery once he finds a local farm that will sell chiles to him exclusively during the summer.

Like wine, beer or whiskey, aging the hot sauce in barrels will enhance its flavor. The makers of Tabasco, for example, age their famous hot sauce in oak barrels for three years.

"It picks up a slight flavor from the oak, which is nice, and it just gives it time for the vinegar to permeate the chile," New says.

Sriracha, recognizable by the iconic rooster emblazoned on each bottle, also inspired a blend created last year by Michelle Mah of Wo Hing General Store.

Jay Foster, chef/owner of Farmer Brown, designed a custom hot sauce to complement the menu's Southern influence when the restaurant opened in 2006.

"We wanted something that was hot and sweet," he says. "Honey jalapeno just kind of came together."

But not before he experimented with several combinations.

"We played around with different sweeteners - agave, maple. The honey just seemed to complement the jalapeno best," Foster says.

Years in the making

It took three years for Ben de Vries, executive chef at Luella, to perfect the recipe for his hot sauce, La Venganza - Spanish for "the revenge." It's named after the first version that was so incendiary it silenced his cooks who once belittled his inability to eat spicy foods.

"I made close to 60 or 70 different batches before I finally said, 'That's what I want to put in a bottle, that's what I want to eat,' " says de Vries, who first bottled La Venganza in September. Now La Venganza can be found at Little Vine and Cheese Plus, both in San Francisco.

Crafting a good hot sauce requires striking a balance between each element, Granados says, similar to making wine. "It's how you keep the habaneros, onions, garlic and everything alive in the bottle."

Before Wo Hing opened late last year, Mah spent several weeks playing with a Sriracha recipe she found online before settling on a combination of Fresno and Thai chiles.

"It was spicy but it had a lot of bitterness to it," Mah says of the original recipe. "I tried Fresnos by themselves and it was very fresh tasting but didn't have as much spice to it because Fresno chiles can go up and down in heat."

Many people eat hot sauce on everything, but de Vries believes standard food pairing philosophies extend to hot sauce.

"I've always been a big advocate of acid and fat balancing out," he says. "So fattier meats and fattier foods in general take hot sauce really well because the acid is cutting through the fat."

At Waterbar, Ingrid Ulrich uses red jalapenos in a simple hot sauce she makes to be eaten with the extensive selection of oysters.

"I wanted it to be very clean, and the taste of the pepper and the acidity to kind of play off the oysters. I didn't want it too salty, because there's a lot of salt in oysters," says Ulrich, a chef and wife of Waterbar executive chef Parke Ulrich. "I started out making it for the oysters, but we found it was really good with everything else."

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Restaurant hot sauces

Youk's Hot Sauce (youkshotsauce.com) and El Yuca Mayan hot sauce (mateogranados.com/el-yuca-sauces/) can be purchased online and at local stores, such as Bi-Rite in San Francisco. La Venganza can be purchased at Luella, Little Vine and Cheese Plus, all in San Francisco.

Making hot sauce

Protect yourself with gloves. The oils from the chiles can coat the fingers and burn sensitive areas of your body if touched. Consider using goggles and a painting mask, particularly if you'll be processing large amounts of chiles. The fumes can burn the eyes and irritate the lungs, and cause sneezing and hiccups. Make sure your work area is well ventilated.

Cordon off children and pets. The last thing you want is for a child or pet to ingest raw chiles or hot sauce.

Use good ingredients to produce a quality sauce.

Taste the chiles and experiment with different varieties, flavor combinations, cooking techniques, consistencies and types of acid. Chiles, for example, can be roasted or poached. Some chefs prefer distilled white vinegar, but others choose more aromatic vinegars, such as apple cider vinegar. The type of strainer used can also affect the thickness of the sauce.

Be prepared for the yield. Some sauces can be preserved for later use, so if you plan on making a large batch, have enough glass canning jars. Once opened, the hot sauce will keep for a long time in the refrigerator.

- Tilde Herrera

Using hot sauce

When deciding which sauce to use with which foods, Luella's Ben de Vries recommends thinking about balancing fat with acid. Hot sauce is generally acidic, so it can accommodate richer foods, such as fried chicken and ribs.

The sauce should complement the food. Too much heat confuses the palate, while a potent sauce may overwhelm more delicate dishes.

Maverick's Scott Youkilis mixes his sauce with ketchup to serve with french fries, and adds it to marinades, mayonnaise, salad dressings, and to melted butter to coat chicken wings.

- T.H.

Waterbar's Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce

Makes about 1 quart

Ingrid Ulrich, a chef and wife of Waterbar executive chef Parke Ulrich, created this hot sauce to complement oysters. This sauce will keep several months in the refrigerator, but the flavor may change over time.

Place the chiles in a large nonreactive (non-aluminum or cast-iron) pot. Cover with vinegar; add salt. Simmer about 10 minutes.

With tongs, remove chiles to a blender. If seeds were included, strain vinegar cooking liquid and add seeds to blender, reserving 1 cup of liquid. Blend chiles, in batches if necessary.

Strain through a fine mesh colander or chinois, pressing thoroughly to extract as much of the fine pulp as possible. Skim the foam. Use the reserved vinegar to adjust thickness (the sauce should be thin and vinegary). Add sugar and adjust salt to taste, if necessary.

Wo Hing General Store's Fermented Chile Sauce

Makes about 2 cups fermented chile sauce + 1 cup garlic chile paste

This recipe from Michelle Mah is highly adaptable and yields a garlic chile paste that will enhance meat marinades, egg dishes and stews. Mah likes to splash the sauce on the restaurant's pork belly egg scramble, stir-fried wheat noodles and oyster egg crepe. This version packs a punch, so if you'd like a milder sauce, you can omit the seeds and Thai chiles altogether; just boost the amount of other chiles by an equivalent amount. Whatever you do, don't overcook the sauce.

Instructions: In a food processor, process the chiles (with their seeds and green caps), garlic, salt and sugar until finely chopped; work in batches as needed. Pour into a large glass container and stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and leave out at room temperature, undisturbed, for 3-5 days, until you can see small bubbles forming around the edges or under the surface. Don't be frightened if a little bit of fuzzy mold grows on top - just scrape it off.

In a large nonreactive (non-aluminum or cast-iron) pot, combine the fermented mixture and vinegar; bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until liquid is reduced by half or small bubbles appear along the edges, about 15 minutes or until thickened. Don't overcook or the fresh chile flavor will disappear.

Remove from heat; transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Strain and press mixture through a very small-holed china cap or strainer; taste, and add water if needed to thin. Save paste solids for marinades, egg dishes and stews.

The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

Scott Youkilis' Bodega Picante

Makes about 2 1/2 cups

Since the key chiles in Youk's Hot Sauce aren't readily available year round, Maverick's Scott Youkilis created this recipe with cucumber, which lends the sauce a bright, fresh quality, a good match for fish or chicken tacos. It's also good on rice, bean and egg dishes, or as a marinade for chicken or grilled seafood.

3 habanero peppers

1/2 medium yellow onion

1 cucumber, peeled and cut in rounds

3 large cloves garlic

2 cups water

1 cup distilled white vinegar

5 tablespoons tomato paste (about half a 6-ounce can)

3 tablespoons kosher salt, or to taste

Instructions: While wearing disposable gloves, remove the stems from habaneros; cut the chiles into quarters, and place in a blender. Cut onion into thin matchsticks; transfer to the blender. Add the cucumber, garlic, water, vinegar, tomato paste and salt; blend until smooth.

Pour into a nonreactive (non-aluminum or cast-iron) saucepan; bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, skimming the foam that floats to the top.

Set aside the amount of sauce you want to use right away; cool it to room temperature, then refrigerate. Have clean canning jars, lids and rings ready, and so you can pour in the remaining hot-off-the-stove sauce into the jars and seal immediately. The jarred sauce can be kept unrefrigerated indefinitely; refrigerate after opening.

Mateo Granados' Habanero Hot Sauce

Yields about 1 cup

This basic Yucatecan-style recipe was inspired by the quick, fresh salsas made by Granados' mother. The sauce can be made year round, but it shines when made with the green habaneros that are picked at the beginning of the chile season. Granados recommends serving this with eggs, tacos, grilled meats or tossed with small mozzarella balls for a fast appetizer.

5 green or orange habanero peppers, stems removed

1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium yellow onion, cut lengthwise into thin matchsticks

5 medium garlic cloves, peeled

2 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 cups distilled white vinegar

Instructions: Roast the habaneros over an open flame to char the skin, being careful not to inhale the fumes. Set aside in a small bowl, and cover with plastic wrap to steam the skins a bit. When cool enough to handle, put on disposable gloves and peel the chiles; set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a small nonreactive (non-aluminum or cast-iron) pan. Add the habaneros, onions, garlic and salt, and cook over medium heat, stirring, until onions are translucent.

Add the vinegar; bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Remove from heat, and transfer to a blender; puree until smooth.

Remove the portion you'd like to use immediately and refrigerate. Pour the still-hot remaining sauce into clean glass canning jars, then seal with lids and rings. The sauce does not need to be refrigerated until opening; after opening, it will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.

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